'Apprentice' winner Stella English: 'Lord Alan Sugar job was a sham'

English won the 2010 series of the BBC reality show, and was given a £100,000-a-year job in Sugar's Viglen division, selling IT hardware to academy schools.

However, she described her role as an "overpaid lackey" and "a sham" in the hearing at the East London Employment Tribunal Service today (March 5), saying that she had to resign after being told her contract would not be renewed.

English claimed that she was not taken seriously by colleagues, and that she only saw Lord Sugar five times in her 13-month period with the company.

She held back tears while explaining that she was "ostracised" by her teammates, who said that she had taken over a previous employee's job which had a £35,000 salary, reports The Mirror.

She said: "The career-enhancing opportunities that The Apprentice position had been sold as simply failed to materialise."

English said that the job "became increasingly untenable to continue". She said: "As time progressed I continued to be marginalised."

On Lord Sugar, she said: "He made it abundantly clear that he didn't want to see me."

She said that she told him: "I have tried so hard for so long and it's not working. I'm an overpaid lackey at Viglen. My pride would not allow me to continue doing it."

Lord Sugar offered her a role in another company in June 2011. English said: "I decided to take up the position due to pressure from Lord Sugar who gave cause for concern that there might be adverse publicity due to me resigning."

However, she explained that Sugar informed her he would not be renewing her contract, alleging that he had only given her a second role in order to keep the integrity of The Apprentice and the BBC intact.

He supposedly told her: "The fact is that I don't give a s**t."

She continued: "He said he basically wasn't going to be renewing my contract. That was the bombshell that I wasn't really expecting at all.

"Until that moment I had believed that I was doing a good job. I thought that he would be happy that I wasn't hassling him.

"I just really could not believe what he was saying. I was in absolute shock. I'd given two years of my life to be told by somebody, 'I don't give a s**t'. All the effort that I'd put in - to be told this was so unnecessary."

The tribunal was adjourned to 10am tomorrow (March 6), where English will continue to be cross-examined.

The Apprentice winners - in pictures:

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Tim Campbell - He worked for Sugar for two years after his 2005 victory before founding a financial recruitment firm and the Bright Ideas Trust charity.
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